Hardware accelerated transcoding

General Discussions Hardware
1

I just have a quick question regarding setting up PMS on a Synology NAS. I’m just learning that hardware accelerated transcoding is required for efficient remote viewing of video. For my purposes, I am only trying to set this up for music but I definitely want to be able to listen remotely and I’m wondering if the lack of hardware accelerated transcoding will affect performance of remote music playback. TIA for any help

2

For music-only playback, you won’t need hardware transcoding.

The most which might happen for you is the music format is converted (FLAC → Opus, etc) which is always done in software

3

Thanks @ChuckPa. I got nervous because I already bought a NAS without knowing about hardware accelerated transcoding. Glad to know that it will still work for my purposes

4

which did you buy?

5

Synology DS220j

6

Nice. Same ARMv8 CPU that I have in my development system.

Should you need to play video, in software, it’ll transcode 1, _maybe 2, streams of 1080p if the bitrate is less than 20 Mbps. It will DirectPlay just about anything you can throw at it. (I even DirectPlay some 4K from it in testing)

7

Thanks for the info. I currently only use PMS to stream music. Video is a whole other realm that I’m not likely to delve into. I don’t watch a lot of TV or movies, but when I do it’s via Netflix or other streaming services.

8

I don’t watch TV either.

I’m in the same category as you. I don’t find anything intellectual enough on TV anymore

9

Maybe you can help me with one other thing (for now, lol) I just installed PMS on the Synology and when I try to log in using my existing account I’m being told that I don’t have access to the server. Any clue why that might be?

And jsyk I’m about to migrate all my music and Metadata from Windows laptop to the Synology

10

Yep. it happens sometimes.

If you ever get you don’t have access on your syno –

  1. Uninstall the server
    – Yes you want to uninstall this package (the syno menu)
    – (UNINSTALL ONLY option – the first radio button) – My menu)

  2. Now, reinstall it.
    – Pick the “Install using Plex Claim Token” button
    – also click the ‘Get Plex Claim Token’ blue link on that form to get the claim token.
    – COPY it from your browser window (will open a new tab) (claim-xxxxxx format)
    – PASTE it back on that Syno install menu
    – Click NEXT - NEXT - Done and it it do its thing

  3. If it is talking to Plex.tv normally, after about 20-30 seconds you’ll get a successful installation message AND it was claimed to your username

That’s it. Now it’ll work

11

I’ll give this a shot. Thanks.

Regarding the install, I’ve read that it’s best to manual install the latest version because Synology package center typically lags behind by a few versions. When I tried that I was told that I would have to revert back to an earlier version of DSM. I didn’t want to do that so I just installed the version that they had. My question is, how important is it to have the same version running on each machine when I migrate the metadata?

FYI the claim token worked like a charm.

Next up metadata migration. Wish me luck

12

It’s all documented.

If migrating from something else.. there are other FAQ there to show you how to do them too.

13

Thanks again. Cheers!